Cashless payment platform enables cheaper healthcare in Tanzania

Africa provides unique challenges to both businesses and humanitarian efforts, with many countries home to high levels of low-income families, often in hard-to-access communities. We’ve seen a number of innovative approaches to these challenges, including peer-to-peer lending platform for farmers who can’t afford crop insurance. Now Jamii is hoping to increase health insurance coverage across Africa.

By partnering with Jubilee Insurance and Vodacom Tanzania, Jamii has developed a cashless platform that expedites the health insurance process for both users and hospitals and reduces the administration costs of insurance claims. Users simply sign up and pay via the mobile banking M-pesa platform, at significantly reduced costs (the lowest service comes in around USD 1 per month), with options to add several family members onto the same policy. After a successful launch in Tanzania, Jamii is aiming to expand into other African countries in 2017, supported by investment from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Could developed countries experiencing health insurance crises, such as the US, also benefit from disruptive financial services such as Jamii?